Its been a while since I have updated my little blogger account here. Internet has been rough in Kucove, something I believe has been stated already, but I'll state it again. There have been a lot of power outages and the Internet cafes in my town don't have generators, so I haven't been able to get to the Internet a whole lot.
We had a Peace Corps conference this week in Durres called our In Service Training. It was a good time with some technical stuff and big group meetings and what not. Durres is the second largest town in Albania and it sits right on the beach. Nobody should really go in the water though because it is dirty and gross, but it is still nice to sit on the Adriatic (?) and look across with yearning for Italy and the rest of civilization. Oh well though.
I am now in the town of Korca, known to many as the Paris of Albania. I guess that after some war the French were the ones to occupy this area and so Albanians will say that there is a French influence in these parts. I dont know about that but it is a pretty area. I went to a nearby town called Bilisht to see my friend and former training sitemate Joey, but he had something to do so I came into Korca today. Korca is one of the bigger sites so it becomes one of the meeting points for volunteer gatherings.
I like to call my town the Texas of Albania because in the summertime it is hot and there are some dwindling oil reserves around the town, but other than that there isn't much there. I have never actually been to Texas, but I feel that I have a right to make assumptions.
Any other updates? School is going well. The term just ended so we had a four day weekend. Our IST was well timed to coincide with this break. I'll be back on Monday ready to teach... or something. I am currently reading a book called the Accursed Mountains. It was written by a guy who trekked through Albania in 1996 and 1997, right before the civil war. It is really negative, he focuses on all of the bad things about Albania and Albanians, but it is kind of funny to read it during this point in my time here because I can identify with a lot of it. I dont think, though, that I'll end up writing a book about this country when I leave.